Leasing A Truck: My Journey

Does Prime's program have a balloon payment at the end? Not interested in leasing, just curious. One thing I did notice is that Prime allows lessees to walk away from the contract at any time without penalty.

Brian,

I appreciate your honesty. Life on the road can get old fast and be very brutal. I can't see being married to the truck as a good thing. The only time I can see your home time not being a burden to your business is when once your truck is paid off and even than it will always result in lost revenue, unless you have some kind of relief team to keep things rolling.

In your previous post you stated you had given your co-driver a $250.00 bonus and since you put it out there I felt it fair to ask.

Continued good luck!

No prime does not have any balloon payment at the end of the lease. In fact you get some of your money back at the end of the lease term depending on a variety of factors such as condition mileage etc

Interesting journal. Just curious, what make/model truck? How many miles on it? Engine type? Word of advice? Inspect, inspect, inspect. Every time you stop that truck, look around thoroughly. Catching problems beforehand can easily make the difference between a $500 repair and a $5000 repair. Frayed hoses, oil leaks, air leaks, bent lines, or rubbing wires. Something simple can shut you down on the side of the road instantaneously. Carry tools. Simple tools to air tools. Make sure you are able to avoid the $100 an hour labor charges for minor repairs that you can do yourself in a parking lot. Spare parts. Once you start to gain capital, think about investing in spare parts. Two feet of hose in various sizes, as well as; hose clamps and repair kits. Compression fittings of various sizes for air lines. Extra nuts and bolts of various sizes. Believe me, they will save you at some point. One last note, I noticed you are not including road expenses in your finances. (Or are you?) Keep track of meals, hotels, laundry, etc. Figure ways to cut these costs and you'll see a huge savings. (Fridge, microwave, coffee maker, etc.) Good luck. Any questions, feel free to ask. It's refreshing to see someone with initiative and ambition.

You answered most of my question but, I do want to know what the point of leasing a truck for you is personally?

Most guys lease because "insert ego pump here" (be my own boss, the DM can't tell me what to run, my own business, all American trucker, making more than those company drivers, the company doesn't own me, etc.) Yes, those are all reasons that someone might lease and a lot of them are "ego sales" (a term in sales where the customer is convinced that owning X product makes them a cut above the rest, usually targeted at men.) Which, is all good and fine if you can actually run the business. So far, you seem to be doing alright. I'll never take an interest in leasing but this is a good thread.

So.. for those of you interested in these type of threads this is a thread from a web site that shouldn't be named. I don't really like the truckers report site. but this thread was pretty good. Its about a guy who goes from company driver to a true independent. He has a lot of good numbers and explains everything very well.

I will honestly probably never be an O/O.. just not me. But I still like to read about the business side of things. Its a long thread took me like 2 weeks to read through it. Anyways here you go.

DY thread on truckers report

Brian, I'm just gonna say this and you do with it what you like. If you keep getting weeks in the 4,000 mile range you're going to be sitting on the side of the road with a sign that says "lost my truck, will work for food" in a few months. That's not sustainable. Not even close. You need to be pumping out 5,500 miles per week or more. I used to average 3,000 miles per week running solo without any trouble. If you could turn a nice profit on 4,500 miles a week we'd all be rich and we'd all be leasing trucks. Those three and four stop loads they suckered you into are going to cost you that truck. You simply can't be doing that kind of stuff running team and leasing like that. They'll run your business into the ground if you let them. Don't think for a second they won't.

And before anyone sees the "profit" numbers Brian has been posting and thinks they're missing out on the big money by being a company driver I highly suggest you wait until he gets to the one year mark and see where this all stands. Everyone looks like a superhero running on roads paved with gold the first few months of leasing. The way they lay out the numbers it seems obvious this is the way to go. But there hasn't been any home time, breakdowns, paychecks for Brian, or sets of tires being changed yet. But it's all coming in due time.

We've had countless people come through this forum that leased a truck and only one ever reported their numbers over a period of two or three years and that was Guyjax. He ran team with his brother and they ran 6,000+ mile weeks every single week and only took like one or two weeks off the entire year. In the end he made like $55,000 for himself when all was said and done and went back to being a company driver.

So Brian, whatever it takes you have to start turning miles in a hurry. Anything under 5,000 miles per week and you're not making anything at all. I don't care how pretty the numbers line up in the beginning. Over the long run you're not making money sitting around that much. As a solo driver if I had gotten only 2,200 miles in a week I would have gone mad with boredom. I would have been rifling off requests for more miles like they were being shot out of a machine gun. Anything under 5,000 miles per week and you should be on that company like your business depends on it, because it does.

The financial engineering and an utter lack of long term expenses figured into the equation is what lulls guys to sleep. They think they're doing great. They think they're making thousands by turning a comfortable amount of miles. Then the breakdowns happen. Then time off. Then a slow spell of freight hits. Then you need 10 new tires. Then you realize, "OMG I've been doing this for free the past 10 months."

So get hustling!

Oh, and by the way....you mentioned getting paid percentage. Does that mean that 500 mile deadhead a while back came out of your pocket? Man I hope not.

I'm always rooting for everyone to be successful and of course that includes you also. That's why I'm telling you don't let yourself think that anything less than 5,000 miles per week is going to make you any money. It's not. You've gotta run hard. You know this website is loaded with stories of lease operators driving their students as hard as humanly possible and not giving a lick about teaching them anything. Why do you think that is? Because they're going broke and they know it. They're desperate. That's why most of them take on students in the first place.

Run hard and be safe!

To all that are following my journal. Sorry the update isn't up yet, I plan to have it up shortly. Unfortunately my IPad took a schizenet and am unable to post the way I am planning to without it. Never fear I am scheduled for hometime on Thursday so I will be able to post then. Thanks for all the info and advise from everyone. Realist I am certainly going to answer your question, believe me I really thought long and hard about it. Thanks Brian

The thing to keep in mind is he's being paid a percentage pay, so miles aren't as important as the revenue of the load. As a company driver being paid by the mile, then yes you want all the miles they can send your way, but when your being paid a percent of the load it changes things. The multi stop loads do have there advantages since there is stop pay that gets billed onto that load.

Has this thread gone the way of the dinosaurs?